Expanding Art
University of San Jorge
Anti-Mexican Immigrant Discourses and the Boundaries of Narratives: The Role of Alternative Storytelling in Countering the Limits of Representations
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Sophie S. Alves
Despite the claims of the U.S. being a post-racial nation, Mexican immigrant women are still subject to racialized portrayals of the hypersexual Latina woman who lacks self-control and is not fit to have a child on U.S. soil. Dehumanizing language is used to describe them as “baby machines,” “welfare queens,” or “breeders” who are leading the “Reconquista” by invading the land Mexico lost in 1848 with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Their children are defined as “anchor babies” who are used as weights that permanently anchor them in the U.S. Consequently, there has been a discursive struggle over the definition of citizenship which participates in the campaign to keep strengthening the U.S.-Mexico border. Accordingly, these individuals are at the center of the “Latino Threat” and the “Anchor Baby” narratives of invasion. How can storytelling contribute to conversations about dominant ideology and provide opportunities for other(ed) perspectives to re-position themselves as experts who re-frame U.S. history, immigration, and racialized gender violence? To capture the underlying dynamics of the borderlands and to provide narratives that are lacking in the hegemonic circulating discourse, Mexican immigrant mothers and their children propose alternative perspectives through storytelling and artistic interventions as they aim at engaging the audience into active listening so that they can see past what is presented to their “eye” and focus on the “I.” Storytelling is thus used as an epistemology in which the story, the storyteller, and the audience all propel the production and reproduction of cultural, regional, community, and personal knowledges.
Drawing as Advocacy: Translating Housing Desires of Homeless Women to Architectural Visualizations
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Stephanie Davidson, Mary Elizabeth Vaccaro
Women are one of the fastest growing populations experiencing homelessness in Canada, and within Canadian urban centres there are limited affordable, safe and sustainable housing options for women. Interdisciplinary collaborations are critical to respond to this growing crisis. This paper describes working at the intersection of architectural and interior design, social work research and art to generate research and advocacy with the intention of advancing the development of housing spaces for women experiencing homelessness. We draw on findings from [in]visible project, a community-based research project with women (inclusive of cis, trans, 2-spirited), without children in their care, who experience long-lasting homelessness living in a mid size Canadan city and focus on the data whereby participants were asked to describe their preferred and ideal housing. We show how architectural drawings and renderings bring these spaces to life and capture the modest requests that homeless women describe as important attributes of their ideal home and space. The scenes are based on drawings of existing spaces chosen as case-studies: a vacant storefront, a residential hotel room, a small apartment, a room in an old farmhouse. Coupling the narrative research with the architectural drawings vividly illustrates the infrastructure needs of women experiencing homelessness, and calls attention to the potential for re-adaptive reuse by local developers and city planners. Our study has important implications for scholars working from across disciplines who are interested in collaborative arts-based research grounded in shared commitments to social change and advocacy.
Sustainable Local Tourism: Creative Place-base Culture and Social Innovation View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Rafaela Neiva Ganga
The Liverpool City Region Combined Authority launched the Liverpool Boroughs of Culture in March 2018. The title is awarded annually on a rotational basis to one of the six local authorities that make up the city region. This paper focuses on the sustainable local tourism strategy adopted by Wirral during 2019 as Bourgh of Culture. ‘Celebrate Wirral’ aimed to increase participation in high-quality arts activities, helping people to benefit from the vital role culture can play in improving mental health and wellbeing. The programme celebrated the borough’s past, present and future through small community-led events to larger-scale spectaculars. The research framework and methodology were co-design with policy-makers (Bergvall-Kåreborn & Ståhlbröst, 2010). This mixed-methods research strategy combined the analysis of events audiences’ survey, and participant observation – key themes were the following: i. Visitors’ profile; ii. Type of visit; iii. Satisfaction, motivations and expectations; iv. Perceptions and learning; v. Sociodemographic characterisation). Qualitative data were transcribed, and content was analysed using N'Vivo 12. Quantitative data were analysed using MS Excel to clean the data and SPSS 26 (95% confidence) for descriptive analysis. ‘Celebrate Wirral’ attracted a local audience, positively satisfied. Overall, ‘Celebrate Wirral’ provided different engagement opportunities for different audiences with different outcomes. Intensive activities/projects tend to have a lasting impact on a smaller number of residents (e.g., social isolation); while events-oriented programmes tend to have an ephemeral impact on a larger number of audiences (e.g., wow effect). Policy recommendations addressing the role of arts in health are offered.
